By Stephen Davis Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and John B. Hood had few things in common, but one of them was that both assumed army command at a critical juncture, thanks to General Joseph E Johnston. In Lee’s case, it was Johnston’s retreat up the Peninsula in May 1862, to the very outskirts of Richmond, and his unin spired attack on Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s army at Seven Pines, that precipitated t change. Johnston was severely wounded on May 31, and Lee took over the Army of Northern Virginia the next day. It wa arguably Joe Johnston’s greatest contribution to the Confederate cause. In Hood’s case, Johnston’s nerveless retrograde through north Georgia two years later, during the spring of 1864, brought Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s Federal forces to the very outskirts of Atlanta. Again the good of the service demanded Johnston’s removal, this time by presidential order. On July 1 Hood acceded to army command. Military historians see anoth er trait shared by Lee and Hood: their inclination to offensive b tle. It was Lee’s order for a fr attack at Gaines’ Mill, June 27, 1862, that allowed Hood to shine at the head of his Texas Brigade Lee’s order for infantry charges at Malvern Hill and Gettysburg
Lee, Hood and the Fog of War proved as bloody as Hood’s at Franklin. At the same time, both Hood and Lee looked for alternatives. Lee devised his masterful flank attack at Chancellorsville May 2, 1863; Hood did the same east of Atlanta, July 22, 1864. Historians have not, on the other hand, paid much attention to another striking similarity b tween Lee and Hood: how both generals responded to a swift movement of the enemy at a critical point in their campaigns of 1864. In Virginia, Lee’s challenge was to respond to the Union Army of the Potomac’s crossing of the James River. During June 13-18, Grant stealthily, bu suddenly, shifted his front from north of the James to the south, from Cold Harbor to Petersburg, a key railroad junction south of Richmond. During several critical days, Lee scrambled for inte ligence of the enemy’s movement and struggled to move his troops accordingly. Similarly, Hood’s challenge was to deal with Sherman’s abrupt change of front, August 26-31. Having laid loose siege to Atlanta for a month, Sherman suddenly slipped six of his seven infantry corps away from the city in a wide sweep to the southeast, aiming to cut Hood’s vital railway between East Point and Jonesboro. Hood scrambled to learn details of the enemy’s movement and struggled to shift
his troops to cope with it. Actually, the argument can be made that in contending with his respective enemy’s front-shifting crisis, both Lee and Hood performed comparably. Each responded as best he could, given the limitations of their numerica strength and their uncertainty as to the enemy’s objective—the mysterious “fog of war.” The difference is that Lee held onto Petersburg and prevented Grant from cutting the railroads south the capital, which Confederates held for another nine months. Hood, on the other hand, failed to prevent Sherman from cutting his railroad south of Georgia’s prize city. The result was that h abandoned Atlanta within twentyfour hours. A tactical detailing the two different campaigns will thus demonstrate how Bob Lee and Bell Hood, in the summer of ’64, responded similarly to a command crisis.* After the June 3 battle of Col Harbor, Lee and his army held defensive positions northeast of Richmond with Grant and his forces before them. On June 7, Grant sent Sheridan and his cavalry off raiding, at least par ly to force Lee to send away his mounted troops. “The only practical effect of the raid,” Englis military historian Alfred Burne has written, “was that it deprive Lee of his ‘eyes’ at a time when, as will be seen, he had most need of them.”1 Just then, Grant began shifting troops leftward, to the south Longstreet’s A.A.G., Lt. Col. Moxley Sorrel, sent out word on June 7, that “General Lee is exceedingly anxious to be advised of any movement the enemy may undertake.”2 The really anxious one, however, was not Lee, but Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederate commander at Petersburg, with only several thousand troops there. On June 7, Beauregard cautioned Richmond that if Grant were on the march, it could be to cross the James River. “Petersburg being nearly defenseless would be captured before it could be re-enforced,” he warned.”3 To be sure, Lee was aware of this threat. Yet he had to worry more about Grant’s presence nearer the capital. “Grant was within nine miles of Richmond and might continue his hammering,” Dr. Freeman writes.4 Unwilling to expose Richmond, Lee kept most of his army north of th James. As Beauregard pleaded with Lee to return troops he had earlier sent him, Lee tried to se tle the jittery Creole down. “No troops have left General Grant’s
army to my knowledge,” he wrote on June 9, “and none could have crossed James River without being perceived.”5 Compounding Beauregard concerns was a Federal attack, June 9, upon his line at Petersburg, conducted by Maj. Gen. Ben Butler’s forces out of Bermu da Hundred. Petersburg’s scratch garrison repulsed the assault, b that night Beauregard called for more help: “Necessity for troops here still urgent.”6 On June 11, Grant informed Butler that he intended to cross the James. That day he instructe Maj. Gen. George Meade, nominal commander of the Army of the Potomac, on how the several infantry corps would head south. They began doing so on the June 13. Grant held back enough cavalry to screen the movement and keep Lee in the dark. By the end of the day, however Lee knew that Grant was moving troops. “I think the enemy must preparing to move south of James River,” he wired President Davis on June 14, “with the view of getting possession of Petersburg before we can reinforce it.”7 As a precaution, Lee sent Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke’s infantry divisi toward Petersburg; beyond that Lee awaited developments. “He could not afford to cross the river in anticipation of Grant’s crossing,” Lt. Col. Burne wrote, “for it would uncover the city that he was expressly enjoined t protect.”8
June 14 was the day Grant’s e gineers laid their pontoon boats over the James. Enough troops got across the next day, joining Butler, to launch an attack on Beauregard’s fortified lines at Petersburg. The Federals broke through at one point, but that night the Southerners drew back and stitched together another line. Beauregard called for help Lee sent another brigade of infa try, Brig. Gen. Matt Ransom’s. Lee could not be sure that Grant was still not hovering north of river, within striking range of capital. As one historian has wr ten, “poor intelligence kept Lee in the dark.”9 On the afternoon of the June 15, Lee wired Gen. Braxton Bragg, the president’s advisor in Richmond, “unless therefore I am better satisfied, shall remain where I am today, a the enemy’s plans do not seem to be settled”10 When Beauregard yammered for more reinforcements, Lee could only reply somewhat testily, “I do not know the positio of Grant’s army and cannot strip north bank of James River,” he wired at 10:30 a.m. on June 16. “Have you not force sufficient?” Robert E. Lee on June 16 seems to have been testy to everybody. Brig. Gen. Eppa Hunton observed that Lee was “in a furious passion….He was mad because he could not find out what Grant was doing.12 “I d not know the position of Grant’s army,” Lee acknowledged to
